FORT WRIGHT, Ky. – The city of Fort Wright is joining other Kentucky cities in seeking compensation from drug manufacturers for the role they’ve played in the ongoing opioid crisis. The city’s mayor said he’s hoping the settlements can help recoup the heavy toll the crisis has taken on the community.

What You Need To Know

  •  Fort Wright joined other Kentucky cities in settlements reached with opioid manufacturers

  •  The city's mayor says what once was a big heroin problem has turned into a big fentanyl problem for Fort Wright

  •  He says the settlement money will help recoup resources that have been spent on combatting the crisis

  • Walmart and Walgreens, two of the manufacturers, both have stores in Fort Wright

Fort Wright is a small community that, because of the heavy traffic that runs through it, deals with some big problems.

“Our police department typically is the third or fourth busiest police department in Kenton County, despite the fact that we only have 6,000 people,” said Mayor Dave Hatter.

Hatter has been the mayor for just over eight years. Before that, he served eight terms on city council.

He said that in the early years of his time as mayor, Fort Wright had a major heroin problem, which has slowly wound down. Now the city is fighting a new battle against fentanyl.

“A very small amount of fentanyl is deadly. And increasingly, unfortunately, it’s getting mixed into other drugs,” Hatter said. “It’s killing people who are taking fentanyl. It’s killing people who don’t realize they’re taking fentanyl. And then there’s that whole secondary risk to the rest of society.”

The resources it has taken the city to respond to overdoses and to help get people off drugs have added up.

“It’s very taxing to a small city of this size,” Hatter said. “We were spending an enormous amount of money on Narcan at one point.”

Fort Wright City Council recently voted to join five national opioid settlements reached with opioid manufacturers Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Teva and Allergan. The settlements resulted from lawsuits challenging whether opioids were sold and advertised appropriately.

There is both a Walmart and a Walgreens in Fort Wright.

“There’s always that risk that you’re gonna rile up your corporate citizens, and again, we get a lot of revenue from our businesses, so we generally try to be very friendly and take a light touch,” Hatter said. 

Despite those business relationships, taking part in the settlements was an easy call for the city to make, he said.

“Frankly, I think it would be crazy not to want to participate, because we could sue all these drug manufacturers on our own to try to recoup our costs. That’s totally impractical. You got this class action lawsuit with these five manufacturers. It makes for us to put ourselves into that process,” he said.

“It’s a huge win for the city, because it helps us recoup some of our previous costs, and hopefully would help us be in a better position to deal with this ongoing fentanyl situation.”

Even with whatever proportional amount of money the city ends up receiving, Hatter said this issue is sadly not going away any time soon. So continuing to find solutions will be crucial.

Kentucky cities must sign up to participate in these settlements by April 18.

Related Stories